ebrill@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Edward Brill) (07/25/90)
In article <720@venice.SEDD.TRW.COM> ries@venice.sedd.trw.com (Marc Ries) writes: >I'm somewhat surprised that no one has used/commented on the Digital >Research DOS V5.0 OS for the IBM-PC. The PC-WEEK Windows Special insert >had a full-page ad: > > Introducing DR DOS 5.0: Windows 3.0 compatible and much, much more. > Shipping May 1990. > >Anybody use it? Comments? We don't use DR DOS as much as we use Digital Research's Concurrent DOS, but IMO DR DOS is a decent package. The July (final) issue of PC Resource comments on DR DOS as being MS DOS 3.3 compatible, supports disk partitions up to 512 MB, and has "goodies galore". We have found with Concurrent that programs that directly access hardware instead of going through BIOS (esp. Microsoft products) have problems running under CDOS. That may not be true with DR DOS, but I'd bet it is. Digital Research established DR DOS in the market because it was available early on as a ROM chip...something Microsoft has only recently done with MS DOS. PC Resource promises "Look for a complete review in next month's issue."... but they ceased publication with this issue. Oh well. --- -- Ed Brill | New .signature under construction... Floral Network, a Division of FTD | Hey, I just got the account! ebrill@ddsw1.mcs.com | ------------------------------------ ebrill@ucs.indiana.edu | Voice : (708) 719-7800
ttak@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Timothy Takahashi) (07/26/90)
In article <1990Jul25.144143.28824@ddsw1.MCS.COM> ebrill@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Edward Brill) writes: >Digital Research established DR DOS in the market because it was available >early on as a ROM chip...something Microsoft has only recently done with >MS DOS. This is really weird, because this is the first time I've ever heard of DR DOS. Many years ago, I remember hearing that Concurrent CP/M 86 was to be partially IBM PC-DOS compatible...... what else (specifically) has used DR-DOS. tim
marwk@levels.sait.edu.au (12/10/90)
With DR DOS what is the precise syntax to remove the password protection
for a directory which has been protected with the command:
password mydir /p:secret /s
ditto for
password mydir /p:secret
Thank you in advance
Rayakcs.vladimer@point.UUCP (kevin kadow) (01/10/91)
Does anybody know anything about this product? Is it really anywhere near as good as their ads seem to claim? What are the drawbacks? bugs? fatal flaws?
phys169@csc.canterbury.ac.nz (01/11/91)
In article <278ab4b6-2430comp.ibmpc@point.UUCP>, akcs.vladimer@point.UUCP (kevin kadow) writes: > Does anybody know anything about this product? Is it really anywhere near > as good as their ads seem to claim? > What are the drawbacks? bugs? fatal flaws? I've used DR DOS 5.0 for a few months now. It is nice to use, very compatible, and offers a lot of advantages for anyone using a 386 with 2Mb of RAM or more (things you would have to get otherwise with expensive memory management add-ons). If you don't have a 386, or have programs that manage the extra memory themselves, there's still some advantage in DRDOS, but you have to decide whether the advantages are worth the extra cost (in my opinion, not a big problem). Advantages (not in any order): * screen-oriented editor instead of EDLIN, Turbo/Wordstar-like (that may be a disadvantage to some) * recall previous command lines with the arrow keys, and better editing of command lines in general. * option of insert mode on by default * better FASTOPEN * good use of memory in all its forms (details below) * VERY nice installation program, easy to understand, doesn't require reformatting your hard disk, easy to re-configure later, sensible questions about retaining existing files. * Nice optional windowy user interface (better than PCDOS 4, probably not quite as good as MS DOS 5) * free fast file transfer-over-coms-line utility * read-write-execute password protection (file-by-file and whole dir's)... if used sensibly, this seems to be good protection from some viruses * the boot sector program does a more complete restart, clearing memory, if this isn't a system disk (might help a wee bit with some viruses). * CONFIG.SYS can have comments and (most importantly) optional lines (you are prompted whether to execute this line). Avoids separate boot diskettes for some situations. * Norton's SI is happy with the disk caching system, compared with some 3rd party caching add-ons, with won't allow the disk test to proceed, i.e. the caching is more transparent, and gives faster transfer rates than some I have tested. * built-in help with most (external) commands * you can specify an indirect list of files - e.g. DIR @MYLIST * good memory display utility (MEM), and a few other goodies... all reasonably well thought-out, and probably popular with Unix types. * doesn't permit deleting all your files by typing DEL *ABC*.* (MSDOS treats this as DEL *.* while DRDOS gives an error message). * Compatibility with NOVELL was said to be a key design goal. * DRDOS and any of your programs (at your option) can use any RAM space above 640Kb (e.g. on a 386 or NEAT chipset 286's, with a mono video card, you can get 800Kb available for programs! * option of confirm-before-delete (for some reason, there are 4 ways to do this under DRDOS!) Disadvantages: * When you JOIN a disk, the DOS call to show the disk space of the JOINed disk fails (but the DIR command, in the JOINed directory, gives the disk space of the wrong (root) directory - as MSDOS does). * The caching program introduces too many disk seeks - the transfer rate is better but the average access time is actually WORSE! Norton's SI gives a good disk speed index, but that's too simple a test. * Networking systems designed for/by Microsoft might not be sure to work. I don't know about MSNET but DECNET DOS (which was written by MS for DEC, I hear), and NCSA telnet & ftp seem to run okay (DECNET DOS's TFA actually works better with DRDOS's COMMAND.COM than MSDOS's for some reason, but I'm using an old version of DECNET DOS). If you run odd-ball networking I'd suggest try-before-you-buy (which is good advice if you run clones or odd BIOSes, etc, anyway). * The FILELINK program doesn't know about modems, so you can't ask it to dial, etc. Also, you have to run it one command at a time (minor niggle). * No BASIC (okay, perhaps that's an advantage!) * The replacement for DEBUG is SID, which takes a little getting used to, but probably is better. Some commands are identical to DEBUG, some are different. * The EDITOR program should have much better search/replace facilities, and although it recognises any function key redefinitions made via ANSI.SYS, it would be nicer if the program made more use of function keys (especially if you don't want ANSI.SYS loaded). * If you use a 286 with extended memory (over 1Mb), and load the kernel high (at segment FFFF), you gain 37Kb of low memory (nice) but the other 27Kb out of the 64K seems to be wasted. You might even waste the rest of extended RAM. * If you use extended memory for anything, it takes over all of the extended memory, leaving nothing for non-DRDOS software (as far as I can see), unless you grab it first - but then you can get conflicts. * They use /H for help, while many programs use /? Since the main advantage for most people, here's my summary of memory use: ON A SIMPLE 8088/8086 or 286 with no more than 640Kb: About the same memory requirements as MSDOS 3.3 (varies according to your setup; you may want to use FASTOPEN more, and BUFFERS less). It will run on a 256Kb machine (even a 208Kb DG1), but the installation program needs 512Kb; of course you can manage without that. If you have EMS it can use it for a virtual disk and/or caching, but not relocate DRDOS itself to give you extra room for programs. ON ANY 286 with memory above 1Mb: You can choose to relocate 37Kb of the operating system's kernel up to segment FFFF, i.e. use the first small part of extended memory (without upsetting things too much by changing modes). This should give you about 600Kb available to programs. You can also use Extended memory for VDISK and/or CACHE. If you use Extended memory for any DRDOS purpose, you'll see no extended memory left for anything else, though.. I don't know why. ON C&T LeAPSet, NEAT, etc 286 machines with more then 640Kb: You can map RAM into gaps in the 640K to 1Mb region (left over after various cards and BIOS ROMs), and use them for DRDOS, device drivers, and your own programs (e.g. TSR's). I've had little problem with using this area for TSR's except MARK/RELEASE and some parts of DECNET DOS. By default, this area is closed off after DRDOS installs itself. ON 386/486 machines: All of the above, plus you can simulate EMS using Extended memory (using EMM386.SYS). Again, you can get about 800Kb (with a Hercules card, less with VGA) available to programs. If you use Windows, QEMM, etc then you'll probably need to avoid some of DRDOS's fancy memory usage (a leaflet with DRDOS tells you what to do; I've seen DRDOS+Windows3 working, but don't use it myself). Summary: A tidy package (they've added lots of things that should have been there years ago, but not added too much), subjectively nice to use, and with some features that might be very important to some people (password protection and use of high/extended/expanded/upper memory). Some minor flaws, but no real worries. A lot of the features are available as PD/whatever add-ons to standard DOS, but putting them into one cohesive product shows up in efficiency and ease of use. Disclaimer: I'm just a satisfied customer. And no, I haven't tried MSDOS 5 yet. Mark Aitchison, Physics Dept, University of Canterbury, New Zealand.
mahrk@ccicpg.UUCP (MHR {who?}) (01/12/91)
In <278ab4b6-2430comp.ibmpc@point.UUCP>, akcs.vladimer@point.UUCP writes: > Does anybody know anything about this product? Is it really anywhere near > as good as their ads seem to claim? > > What are the drawbacks? bugs? fatal flaws? I bought DR-DOS 3.31, which was supposedly the functional equivalent of MS-DOS 4.00 (had support for > 32Mb hard disks, some other stuff). Overall I found it to be a really nice product with a couple of exceptions: 1) I found I was not using some of its advanced features, like the command history recall/editing, because I got that and more with CED (evaluation: not bad, but not as good as - well, keep reading), which has aliasing as well. 2) My wife and I make extensive use of the SUBST command. In MS-DOS, this is an external command (actually, an EXE program). BUT, in DR-DOS this is an internal command, which means it is essentially inaccessible except from the command line. In order to do the equivalent of calling SUBST from inside another program or a batch file, I had to substitute calling COMMAND.COM with the /C option and specifying the subst command that way, which takes forever and grinds the disk. It got to be too irritating to continue. 3) Some things (can't remember which, exactly - this was over 6 months ago) just didn't work right or worked occasionally. For one thing, the formatter works completely differently and in a way which is not 100% compatible with MS-DOS's formatter (or MS-DOS). This was a real pain (had to reformat one of my hard drives to convert - yecch!). Also, the documentation only includes a (well written but brief) user's guide (no technical reference, but available for an extra $25 from DR). Also, I couldn't specify ram drives or cache in my EMS, and the limit on the former was 256k (I have 384k EMS) anyway. I finally got hold of an MS-DOS 3.31 (the Acer version) and have been using that and 4DOS ever since. Both are much nicer for my personal use, and the 4DOS interface beats CED in many ways (like inclusion of a fair number of handy commands that xx-DOS lacks altogether and which replaced about 20-30 of my little PC Magazine utilities). Ultimately I felt that there were just too many things which DR-DOS did differently from MS-DOS in ways that made it unusable for me. BTW, anyone want a copy of DR-DOS 3.30? Available (cheap) with book and original floppies on request. -- Mark A. Hull-Richter Witty comment (identified for those who lack wit): ICL North America ^^^^^^^^^^^^^-----------vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv 9801 Muirlands Blvd UUCP: ccicpg!mahrk Go ahead, flame me. I have Irvine, CA 92713 (714)458-7282x4539 a /dev/null on my machine.
granoff@vaxwrk.enet.dec.com (Mark H. Granoff) (01/24/91)
In article <278ab4b6-2430comp.ibmpc@point.UUCP>, akcs.vladimer@point.UUCP (kevin kadow) writes: >Does anybody know anything about this product? Is it really anywhere near >as good as their ads seem to claim? > >What are the drawbacks? bugs? fatal flaws? The latest issue of PC Magazine (Feb 12, 1991 I think) has a review of DR DOS V5.0. I haven't read it yet, but I suspect it has the answers you seek. -- --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark H. Granoff | Enterprise Integration Services/Engineering VAXworks --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digital Equipment Corporation | ARPAnet: granoff@vaxwrk.enet.dec.com 129 Parker Street | Usenet : ...!decwrl!vaxwrk.dec.com!granoff PKO2-1/M21 | AT&T : +1 508 493 4512 Maynard, MA 01754 | FAX : +1 508 493 2240 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Opinions herein are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of Digital. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
krause@prlhp1.prl.philips.co.uk (krause) (01/30/91)
I have just bought this. I installed it on a newly formatted hard disk on a Tandon 286 AT compatible. After going through the installation routine I was prompted to do a warm boot. I did this, the machine re-booted and a message said 'Load Memorymax Software?' I typed 'y'. I was then rewarded with the message 'HIDOS.SYS -> Incorrect version of DR DOS'. I am not impressed. Is this supposed to be a serious product? DAK
medici@dorm.rutgers.edu (Mark Medici) (02/01/91)
krause@prlhp1.prl.philips.co.uk (krause) writes: >I have just bought this. I installed it on a newly formatted hard disk on >a Tandon 286 AT compatible. After going through the installation routine >I was prompted to do a warm boot. I did this, the machine re-booted and a >message said 'Load Memorymax Software?' I typed 'y'. I was then rewarded >with the message 'HIDOS.SYS -> Incorrect version of DR DOS'. I am not >impressed. I haven't seen that problem, but check out these: 1st try at installing DR-DOS on a freshly low-level formatted 103MB drive. DR-DOS correctly recognizes the drive. I have it make one large partition. Install the software with some minimal changes from the defaults. Reboot the system and everything looks fine. Try restoring my files from tape -- get data errors writing the hard disk. FAT and partition tables are heavily munged. Norton Disk Doctor managed to straighten it all out - but I decide to install again from scratch. 2nd attempt, use all DR-DOS defaults for balanced installation. Boots fine. Try to restore from tape and get a message that, after restoring about 4MB, my 103MB disk is full. Boot up Compaq DOS 3.31 and finish the restore without problems. Try to run MS-Windows 3.0a -- big time problems. Doesn't run in 386 enhanced mode regardless of memory management settings (yes, I nixed MemMax and put Himem in instead). 286 standard mode is very unstable. Why would I want to run in real mode on an 8MB/33MHz 386? Granted, I am new with DR-DOS, and haven't spent a great deal of time on it. However, at this point I would not recommend DR-DOS to anyone who doesn't have a good chunk of time to baby it. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mark Medici ** Systems Programmer III * Rutgers University Computing Services medici@elbereth.rutgers.edu * medici@cancer.BITNET * !rutgers!elbereth!medici My opinions are not necessarily my employers'. *Reality is context-sensitive.
reichert@motcid.UUCP (Chuck KD9JQ) (02/02/91)
Sorry you have problems with DR DOS Mark. Just installed DR DOS 5.0 a month ago on my AMI 386-25 64k Cache motherboard with no problems other than not liking their method of installing ViewMax. Although you can load TSR's and drivers into upper memory QEMM 5.1 allows more memory locating options than DR DOS's memory manager. Other than that I'm getting 619K out of 655K useable memory. My Colarado Internal Tape backup worked just fine going from MS DOS 4.01 to DR DOS 5.0. The only difference is I break up my 105M IDE HD into four 26M drives. I heard of too many problems using one large drive, just like you have experienced but not limited to DR DOS. Chuck Reichert KD9JQ 708-358-3827 Home after 8PM CSt 708-632-6669 Work
kmcvay@oneb.UUCP (Ken McVay) (02/03/91)
In article <Jan.31.21.00.19.1991.8972@dorm.rutgers.edu> medici@dorm.rutgers.edu (Mark Medici) writes: >krause@prlhp1.prl.philips.co.uk (krause) writes: [DR DOS failure described] >I haven't seen that problem, but check out these: [DR DOS failure described] >Granted, I am new with DR-DOS, and haven't spent a great deal of time on it. >However, at this point I would not recommend DR-DOS to anyone who doesn't >have a good chunk of time to baby it. Interesting... I bought DR DOS 5.0 this past summer, because the feature list was impressive, and I needed better security for commercial communications installations. I installed it on an existing MS-DOS 4.01 system (Adaptec SCSI bus, Miniscribe 110mb disk) - the process took about 10 minutes, no data was lost, and it's worked flawlessly since. After playing with it for about a month, I began offering it as the 'first choice' o/s for my commercial sales, and have installed several systems similar to mine with no difficulties either during installation or afterwards. I would like to know more about the systems where serious problems have been encountered - maybe we can figure out what's causing the bumps :-) -- Public Access UUCP/UseNet (Waffle/XENIX 1.63) | kmcvay@oneb.wimsey.bc.ca| TB+: 604-753-9960 2400: 604-754-9964 | ..van-bc!oneb!kmcvay | FrontDoor 2.0/Maximus v1.02/Ufgate 1.03 | FidoNet 1:351/190.1 | HST 14.4: 604-754-2928 | IMEx 89:681/1 |
frotz@dri.com (Frotz) (03/08/91)
krause@prlhp1.prl.philips.co.uk (krause) writes:
]I have just bought this. I installed it on a newly formatted hard disk on
]a Tandon 286 AT compatible. After going through the installation routine
]I was prompted to do a warm boot. I did this, the machine re-booted and a
]message said 'Load Memorymax Software?' I typed 'y'. I was then rewarded
]with the message 'HIDOS.SYS -> Incorrect version of DR DOS'. I am not
]impressed.
]Is this supposed to be a serious product?
How about some more details? What is the configuration that you
setup? What did the setup procedure think your machine was? (***
What is the date on your disks? ***)
I use it on my portable and my 386 at work, but then again, I am a lot
closer to quick answers than you;-{
--
John "Frotz" Fa'atuai frotz@dri.com (email@domain)
Digital Research, Inc. {uunet|amdahl}!drivax!frotz (bang!email)
c/o MIS Dept. (408) 647-6570 (vmail)
80 Garden Court, C13 (408) 649-3896 (phone)
Monterey, CA 93940 (408) 646-6248 (fax)
==========
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